Titusville Watching The Launch A Comedy Of Errors

We had been on the hook for eight days so it was time to fill the tanks, enjoy hot showers, fetch fresh milk and work on a couple of land jobs that needed our attention, so we scooted into Titusville (Marc insists on dropping the u). I always rate marinas on how clean the bathroom is and if there’s copious amounts of hot water. Marc’s rates marinas by the dockage and how close a marine store can be found. Titusville Municipal Marina was a great little marina. 

Titusville Marina

Our plan was to complete our tasks and head back to the ICW the following day. So we scrubbed the boat, scrubbed ourselves, scrubbed the clothes and where planning our route when we met Nicky & Marc of the sailing vessel Arial from New Brunswick. Marc told us that there was to be a launch at Cape Canaveral on Tuesday the 6th 06:18. 

Watching a NASA launch definitely changed things. We decided that on the next day we would head to the Cape Canaveral lock to anchor and get a close up view. Woo who, so excited. The next day we woke to grey skies, gusting winds and white caps. Our planned anchorage and birds eye view was out. 

Our View Of Cape Canaveral 

I Ran The Bridge!

Plan number two, stay in Titusville for the extra day, and watch the launch from here. Titusville is sort of parallel to Cape Canaveral and easy to see with the naked eye. Nicky and Marc had rented a car and asked if we wanted to join them at a popular viewing sight. Of course, be ready to leave by 05:30. We are ex military, 05:30 easy, peasy. I check the batteries on the cameras, Marc charges up the go pro, we gather coffee mugs and paraphernalia, lay out our clothes, prepare the coffee so we just have to flip on the burner in the am. We were so prepared it would have made any boy scout master proud. Marc asks “are you going to set an alarm?” I respond yes, Marc decides to set one too which creates a lively but funny conversation about how I never sleep in, and how his confidence in my ability to wake is such a fleeting characteristic that he consistently complains about it.

People Taking Pictures Of People Taking Pictures 

Waiting For Launch

 I SLEPT IN! Marc’s alarm doesn’t go off, my alarm doesn’t go off. It’s 06:05 and the launch is at 06:18. We quickly try to dress, I ask Marc to take a camera and head to a viewing area a ten minute jog away.  Out he goes, I scramble minutes later to catch up, grab my camera and leave. The next hour becomes a comedy of errors with me forgetting the memory chip for my camera, me getting lost, Marc and I not finding each other and Marc’s desperate search for a restroom culminating into a scrubbed launch. I hope we do better for the rescheduled friday morning launch.  

The Launch Was A Scrub But The Morning Was Amazing 

Marc Manatee Watching 

Fort Matanzas

Fort Matanzas New Years Day

Marc & I had a fun New Year's Day waiting out some cold weather, relaxing, hiking, exploring and catching up on wifi. It wasn’t a planned stop but it turned into a perfect little anchorage. The only down side was the steady strong current of 2-3 knots. With our dingy presently only equipped with paddles we were at the mercy of the current for our excursion to Fort Matanzas

Hey I’m no historian but it seems that there was a long fight between the Spanish & French over Florida, come on, go figure beautiful weather, a perfect base for pillaging fleets heading back to Europe and worse yet those devoutly Catholic Spanish against those French Protestants (this was a shocker for me to) hmm. So, the French have Fort Caroline (1565), and the Spanish have founded St Augustine (yet to be explored by DevOcean due to inclement weather). It seems as the story goes, that the French are not happy and set sail to take St Augustine from the Spanish, but a nasty hurricane carries the French ships further south somewhere between what is now Daytona and Cape Canaveral most of the french ships are destroyed. At the same time the sneaky Spanish go back to Fort Caroline and with the French soldiers gone capture les colonie. Those hurricane,  ship wrecked French were hardy men and about 150 of them trudged to get back to Fort Caroline but those sneaky spanish heard and persuaded them to surrender. Sadly, exhausted and without weapons they did and were promptly slaughtered by the Spanish. Two weeks later the same events accrued, and in all nearly 250 were killed. From this time on the inlet was known as Matanzas the spanish word for “slaughter” (This may explain my french husbands nervousness around the spanish tourists in the crowd). 

So the French, the Spanish, the British? (We all remember Sir Francis Drake 1586?)  England repeatedly harassed this spanish colony, (Gov James Oglethorpe 1740.) So, to prevent the English from forcing St Augustine to surrender to the British The Spanish built fort Matanzas. And it worked for many years until after the French & Indian war 1763 they just gave Florida to Britain then in 1784 after to American revolution it was returned to the Spanish. Years later, in 1819 Spain transferred Florida to the United States.

Sister Creek 29 Dec Pine Island East 30 Dec Fort Matanzas 31 Dec 2014

Coming out of Jacksonville Landing on the St Johns River put us right back into the commercial river way and the land of barges and industrial traffic. I hadn't seen this since the river system last year 

Back in the barge traffic

We snuck off the St Johns River at Sisters Creek and enjoyed a quiet night on a free dock. We caught up with and shared dock tales with the S/V Cat Manana that was at El Milagro Marina in Isla Mujeres, and crossed with the mass exodus the same time we did. It was an interesting evening listening to the knowledge of the couple that had been cruising for 20 years along with the excitement of a young couple that just bought their first sailboat and were learning the ins and outs, dos and don’ts, engine failure and heart palpitations that we all experience. 

Sisters Creek

Pine Island East

The next day we headed for pine island east an anchorage that would put us in a good distance from St Augustine where we had reservations on a mooring ball for New Years Eve. It turned into a dull, dank, wet day on the ICW, but we spotted our first dolphins of the season and dolphins can always cheer me up. That night on the hook at Pine Island East the weather stayed nasty and wasn't supposed to change until the 1st Jan so we decided not to waste a day at a mooring in bad weather and headed off to Fort Matanzas for a quiet New Years just the two of us 

 Don't look for me, I am inside sewing or at least thats my excuse to stay warm 

Jacksonville Landing

Jacksonville City Landing was a wonderful long over due stop, we enjoyed a beautiful Christmas tree, live music and a cold margarita. How soon we forgot the scrubbing and scrapping. The sunset was stunning and people watching perfect 

Marc Took Me For A Great Run, Up One Bridge Down The Next 

 Our View From The Bank Of America Dinner 

Foggy, Foggy Morning, Late Morning, Early Afternoon Sorta

After a fantastic sleep on the hook, I jumped out of bed at 06:30 to take a morning sunrise (07:33) picture, but the fog has rolled in and though I can see the sun trying to pop thru it seems to be getting thicker and thicker. The fog finally lifted and we could pull anchor at 11:37. Off to the free city docks in Jacksonville City.

06:35

07:00

09:00

10:00

After The Fog There Is A Rainbow Who Knew? 

Off The Hard Woo Who Only Six Miles But Who's Counting

Yesterday was a pretty great day for us, as we moved away from the Green Cove Springs Marina wall. Oh, so we only went six.eight miles, but sunshine and excitement was the trend for the day. One of the first questions boaters in a boat yard ask is “where are you going,” and the second question is always “when are you leaving?” Our 42 days on the hard made for repetitive responses, so we started coming up with, or copying inventive answers such as, we are right where we belong today, or we will leave on the first or the second, the first chance I get, or the second the boat is ready...today we got to say, today :) 

As with spending time in any boat yard we were happy to renew relationships with friends made last year on the loop and Cuba and make new friends that we hope to catch up again with. We are learning that the world is big, but the sailing community is small, everybody knows everybody or someone who knows someone you know. 

So now as I sit in the first anchorage of the season with the chaos of prep and repair over,   enjoying the sunset I feel like this years boating season has finally started. 

My Captain, Oh Captain

Being On The Hard Is Hard But... 2014

1984 was a good year, the first Apple Mac went on sale, Sonny released its first commercial CD players, Ghost Busters was in the theatre, Phil Collins was on the radio and in 84 DevOcean was built in France.

I tried to research some history on DevOcean and the Beneteau for this blog and really all I fell upon were beautiful yachts, with beautiful, people dressed in white, sipping champagne or leisurely doing yoga on the spacious fore deck. Trust me I haven't worn white for the past month, I will save the champagne for new years and if crumpling yourself in semi erotic poses to twist a screw in an impossible space is yoga then I am solid on that front.

We are doing what seems to be the yearly converging of the cruising community in working yards, living on the hard. Boaters gather to sand, wax, paint, repair, renew, rebuild, remodel their boats to keep them safe and seaworthy. It aint sexy, it aint pretty, and it aint fun, Its necessary.

In my limited experience, boat yards are dirty places, with many tired people scrambling for parts on questionable internet, sleeping in the same space they work in from sun up to sun down all trying to get there boats back in the water so they can go sailing. 

In my summer fantasy of returning to DevOcean I thought I would return to her gleaming in the boat yard, do a little “pretty," socialise and leave. Reality bit my butt. 

Due to the cracked port lights she was damper than expected. We easily and quickly dried her out with ventilation (quite simply, open hatches). We took all of the cushions out and left them in the sun to dry out thoroughly, washed all of the covers etc. Bleach, vinegar, vinegar bleach, It didn't take long to completely dry her out. Our major problem was the unexpected cracked port lights, replacing them and finding Chicago screws. Ok, not finding the screws but getting the screws. I could write a whole other blog on that and the bad service from www.chicagoscrews.com but that just wouldn’t be nice. Suffice it to say we still have not received an order placed almost a month ago. Thus one of the main reason for still sitting.

Side One Of Two

So we turned to replacing the famous Beneteau sagging head liner in the bow berth and salon with a crisp clean white pcv board. In my head easy peasy right? Why don’t I listen to my inner Marc?  After much scrubbing, scrapping and sanding the bow berth is beginning to look beautiful, the salon brighter. My new and most fantastic gift Marc gave me was two new port holes, one above the stove and one parallel on the starboard wall for cross ventilation. Love my new port holes.  

My View Last Night From My New Port Hole Cooking Dinner

So where are we at? Marc is finicky with the engine and it is being finickity back at him. I have resorted to provisioning and staying out of his way. If we don’t launch by friday which we must do with a working engine we will not be able to launch until the New Year. Being in Jacksonville is no hardship but we would much prefer being in the water. As always boating people are, gracious, helpful, so as much as being on the hard is hard, life is good. 

Old Saggy

Pictures To Follow If I Ever Get To The Pretty Part

Many chores have come from normal wear and tear sadly some from the abuse of others  While at dinner on a mooring ball in Key West last year we were hit and the anchor rollers ripped almost completely off.  So Marc replaced them from the sailors exchange in St Agustin. I wonder what the other boat looked like?